This is quite a service Civitas will provide stalkers with. Before a stalker decides to go after his or her intended victim, they need only look up whether the victim can defend themselves. Civitas has nearly 100 publications in 11 states and a circulation of 1.6 million.
One of the main benefits of concealed carry is that criminals don't know until they attack whether a victim is able to defend herself. Thus, people who would never think of owning a gun, let alone carrying it with them, benefit from the fact that others are willing to do so.

One of the main benefits of concealed carry is that criminals don't know until they attack whether a victim is able to defend herself.

Mr Farage said the current ban on the guns, which were made illegal following the school shooting at Dunblane in 1996, was “ludicrous.”

Speaking on LBC Radio Mr Farage said that it was Ukip policy to create a “proper licensing policy” and that people who kept hand guns responsibility locked up and had were willing to get an official license should “absolutely” be allowed them.

Peter Squires, professor of criminology at Brighton University and a member of Association of Police Officer’s advisory group on the criminal use of fire arms said that Mr Farage’s comments were "irresponsible". . . .

Question: When early voting is created or extended what impact does it have on political races?

I was looking at the Presidential Commission on Election Administration report and noted their discussion on early voting. Just some thoughts: most campaigns, particularly those of challengers, try to wait until near the election before they spend their limited funds on advertising. What impact does early voting have on how well informed voters are? Does early voting increase the re-election rate for incumbents? Does it change the rate that Democrats or Republicans win election?

More evidence that Obamacare won't reduce the number of uninsured

"Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds less than 40 percent of uninsured adults will obtain coverage in 2014." Saying only 39 percent of those who are uninsured will get insurance isn't very good news, but the numbers are even much worse than that. This number is extremely misleading in that there is a large flow in and out of uninsured each year. The government's survey of uninsured is just for people at one point of the year (March). Many of these people are uninsured while they are switching jobs. The bottom line is that the 40 percent number is pretty meaningless as a measure of how things are improving unless you take into account the normal turnover and that turnover is around 40 percent.

Will Obama push gun control in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday?

None of that got done, opening the possibility for plenty of recycling in Tuesday’s speech.

Gun control seems the least likely to be a repeat. It’s not an issue that would help Democratic Senate candidates or incumbents running in Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, West Virginia or Montana. . . .

Given how much Obama pushed for gun control AND has continued to push for it up until very recently, I have a hard time believing that he will let the issue drop. On the other hand, the polling support for more gun control is weak. If he pushes for it despite these political costs, it will help show how fixated he is on the issue.

Smallest cars sold in the US did really, really badly in safety tests

Of 11 subcompact and minicars subjected to the Institute's small overlap crash test only one, General Motors' (GM, Fortune 500) Chevrolet Spark, did reasonably well.

Six of the cars earned the Institute's lowest rating of "Poor." Those were the Nissan (NSANF) Versa, Toyota (TM) Prius c, Hyundai Accent, the Mitsubishi Mirage, Chrysler Group's Fiat 500 and the Honda (HMC) Fit. The Mazda2, Kia Rio, Toyota Yaris and Ford (F, Fortune 500)
Fiesta were deemed Marginal, the second-worst of four possible ratings.
Most of these cars have done well in the Institute's other crash tests
and in government tests. The Insurance Institute is a private
organization financed by auto insurers.

The Spark earned a rating of Acceptable. None of the cars earned the top rating of Good. . . .

New York Times' Jill Abramson says that Obama administration "the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with"

From AL Jazeera:

Let me move on to another topic in the Obama administration. How would you grade this administration, compared to others, when it comes to its relationship with the media?Well, I would slightly like to interpret the question as "How secretive is this White House?" which I think is the most important question. I would say it is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering, and that includes — I spent 22 years of my career in Washington and covered presidents from President Reagan on up through now, and I was Washington bureau chief of the Times during George W. Bush's first term.I dealt directly with the Bush White House when they had concerns that stories we were about to run put the national security under threat. But, you know, they were not pursuing criminal leak investigations. The Obama administration has had seven criminal leak investigations. That is more than twice the number of any previous administration in our history. It's on a scale never seen before. This is the most secretive White House that, at least as a journalist, I have ever dealt with. . . .

The federal government covers some costs, through Medicaid and Medicare (40% and 23% for post-acute care, respectively, Heritage says), but the rest comes out of the pockets of consumers, directly or through long-term care insurance payments.

What makes this particularly sad: Nationwide says 54% of boomers would "rather die than live in a nursing home," primarily because they don't want to financial burden their families. . . .

Will Obamacare destroy the health insurance industry?: Was this the plan all along?

My own guess is that this disaster is from hubris and incompetence. Democrats simply thought that they knew better how to run industries than the people who have their money on the line would know. Moody's is also concerned about The Hill calls the "string of unilateral changes and delays" in how the Obama administration is administering the law. From The Hill newspaper:

Moody’s announced Thursday it was downgrading its outlook for health insurers from stable to negative based on uncertainty related to ObamaCare.The credit rating agency cited an unstable environment because of the healthcare law’s difficult rollout . . . .“While we’ve had industry risks from regulatory changes on our radar for a while, the ongoing unstable and evolving environment is a key factor for our outlook change,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Stephen Zaharuk said in a statement. “The past few months have seen new regulations and announcements that impose operational changes well after product and pricing decisions were finalized.”The Moody’s report also cites the slow enrollment of young people into ObamaCare as a reason for the downgrade.“Uncertainty over the demographics of those enrolling in individual products through the exchanges is a key factor in Moody’s outlook change,” the ratings agency said.Citing statistics released by the administration, it noted that so far about 24 percent of enrollees are between the ages of 18 and 34, while a target of 40 percent may be necessary to keep premiums from rising in the future.It said the 24 percent of young people enrolled so far is “well short” of the 40 percent target. . . .

The End of Bitcoin?: The government doesn't like competition

Governments don't like competition. Back in the late 1970s the federal government refused to let American Express pay interest on its Traveler's checks because of a fear that people would want to hold them instead of US currency. That wasn't an unreasonable fear given that inflation got up to an annual rate of 14 percent during the last quarter of 1980. Currency competition also means that the government can't do what it wants with the currency. If the government starts printing up a lot of money, people might want to hold an alternative currency that won't be falling in value. A competing currency also means the government will lose what is called Seigniorage, the difference between what the cost of making the currency and the face value of it. For cash, it might only be a couple of pennies, but the government can get $20 for a $20 dollar bill. From the American Banker:

"We have to make sure it does not become an avenue to funding illegal activities or to funding activities that have malign purposes like terrorist activities," Lew said in an interview with CNBC today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "It is an anonymous form of transaction and it offers places for people to hide." . . .

1/23/2014

So if Democrats know what they are doing on gun control, why is it that so few people approve of his job on that issue?

A new Fox News poll shows that the approval/disapproval gap is bigger for Obama on gun control than it is on all but one other issue. 22 percentage points more people disapprove of Obama on gun control than approve of the job that he is doing. But heck, that is only one percentage point worse than it is for the job that he is doing on the economy, and we all know how well that is going.

A third of voters say they like both Obama and his policies -- a dramatic drop from 47 percent who felt that way in October 2012. In addition, 62 percent now say they dislike the president’s policies, up from 51 percent the month before his re-election.

· 2014: Small-business policy cancellations. This year, the small-business market is going to get hit with the policy cancellations that roiled the individual market last year. Some firms will get better deals, but others will find that their coverage is being canceled in favor of more expensive policies that don’t cover as many of the doctors or procedures that they want. This is going to be a rolling problem throughout the year.· Summer 2014: Insurers get a sizable chunk of money from the government to cover any excess losses. When the costs are published, this is going to be wildly unpopular: The administration has spent three years saying that Obamacare was the antidote to abuses by Big, Bad Insurance Companies, and suddenly it’s a mechanism to funnel taxpayer money to them?· Fall 2014: New premiums are announced.· 2014 and onward: Medicare reimbursement cuts eat into hospital margins, triggering a lot of lobbying and sad ads about how Beloved Local Hospital may have to close.· Spring 2015: The Internal Revenue Service starts collecting individual mandate penalties: 1 percent of income in the first year. That’s going to be a nasty shock to folks who thought the penalty was just $95. I, like many other analysts, expect the administration to announce a temporary delay sometime after April 1, 2014.· Spring 2015: The IRS demands that people whose income was higher than they projected pay back their excess subsidies. This could be thousands of dollars.· Spring 2015: Cuts to Medicare Advantage, which the administration punted on in 2013, are scheduled to go into effect. This will reduce benefits currently enjoyed by millions of seniors, which is why they didn’t let them go into effect this year. . . .

1/21/2014

Swedes getting tired of long queues to get health care, moving to private health insurance

Seven day waits to visit primary care doctor? As someone who has had relatives through marriage in Sweden, I can attest first hand that there have been extremely long delays of months once one gets past primary care. From The Local in Sweden:

"It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me."

The insurance plan guarantees that she can see a specialist within four working days, and get a time for surgery, if needed, within 15.

In December, the queues in the Swedish health care system pushed the country down a European ranking of healthcare.

"Why can Albania operate its healthcare services with practically zero waiting times, and Sweden cannot?" the report authors from the Health Consumer Powerhouse (HCP) organization in Brussels asked, albeit acknowledging modest improvements. "The Swedish queue-shortening project, on which the state has spent approximately €5 billion, has achieved some shortening of waiting times." . . .

"The target for maximum wait in Sweden to see your primary care doctor (no more than seven days) is underachieved only by Portugal, where the corresponding figure is 15 days," the report stated. . . .

More fallout from Obamacare: Target Corp drops part-time employees from its healthcare plan

In a blog post on the company’s website, Jodee Kozlak, the executive vice president of human resources, framed it as a positive development for part-time employees of the company.

“The Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time members may prefer,” she wrote. “In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.” . . .

“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan,” Kozlak continued. . . .

Still, the announcement could reignite criticism over President Obama’s pledge that if you like your plan, you can keep it. . . .

If the justices rule that home care workers in Illinois are independent contractors rather than state employees, that could allow workers to opt of union representation and cut back on unions' sway. . . .

It is actually pretty amazing that unions are seriously claiming that they are helping out the customers of their services. Unions raise wages and generally lower quality. They raise wages by restricting the number of people in the profession. Quality declines as unionized workers are very difficult to fire.So how do you think the disabled and the elderly would like lower costs and increased quality for the services that they need?

Davis did very briefly live in a mobile home and she briefly was a single mom working two jobs. But a lot is left out and incredibly misleading. Her second husband earned her way through her last two years at Texas Christian University and all of her time at Harvard Law School. Her second husband took care of her kids, even the ones from her first marriage (seriously!).

she met Jeff Davis, a lawyer 13 years older than her, married him and had a second daughter. He paid for her last two years at Texas Christian University and her time at Harvard Law School, and kept their two daughters while she was in Boston. When they divorced in 2005, he was granted parental custody, and the girls stayed with him. Wendy Davis was directed to pay child support.In an extensive interview last week, Davis acknowledged some chronological errors and incomplete details in what she and her aides have said about her life.“My language should be tighter,” she said. “I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.” . . . Davis defended the accuracy of her overall account as a young single mother who escaped poverty, earned an education and built a successful legal and political career through hard work and determination. . . .

Wendy Davis' language "should be tighter"? If a Republican had done this type of misleading, they would be ravaged by the press. She escaped poverty by getting married to a 13 years older lawyer who paid for her way through college, took care of her children, and the man got custody of her kids because she was so focused on her own work. It is nice that she was worked hard enough to graduate from Texas Christian and get into Harvard Law School, but to say that her hard work got her out of poverty is a bit much, unless you include the dating market as your way of working your way out of poverty.As an aside, Sarah Palin was savaged by liberals for being governor and having kids -- that she wasn't able to give them the desired time even though her husband made up the difference. How often do women lose custody of their biological children to a husband who isn't the children's biological father? How often do women lose custody in any case, especially if they have a good paying job as a lawyer? It seems like more is going on here than Davis simply having spending all her time at work.

Are states with more economic freedom in better fiscal condition?

The answer appears to be "yes." States with more economic freedom seem to be in much better shape fiscally. The Mercatus Center's measure of state Fiscal Conditions has been getting some attention this weekend. I thought that it would be interesting to see whether Democrats or Republicans have been doing a better job running their states, but it seemed easier to look at Mercatus' measure of economic freedom. The causation isn't clear, but there is a strong, statistically significant relationship between the two.

Need to carry a briefcase AND a firearm? No problem. K-Var’s solution is a briefcase with a revolver concealed in the handle -- which is arguably more "Get Smart" than 007, but cool either way. This option is part of a very limited release of three guns in .22 short with five shots. . . .

If you’re trying to conceal a weapon on your torso, then shoulder holsters that restrict what you can wear can be a big challenge for women.

Vendors responded to the growing women’s market, bringing to SHOT Show a wider selection of compression garments and purses designed for concealed carry. Undertech Undercover’s Bebe purse was getting a lot of attention from the ladies, for example.

The new Bebe is a compact leather clutch that can be used with jeans or that little black dress. In addition to your lipstick and whatnot, it's made to fit compact semiautomatic pistols and small-frame double-action revolvers.

The full-length zipper along the handbag’s upper rear edge opens to a lined compartment with an elasticized holster and for added security it has a locking zipper.Designed to keep a compact handgun available and quickly accessible for personal defense, it retails for about $180.

The Bebe was just one of a proliferation of handbags for women and for guys looking for a concealment man bag -- the selection wasn't nearly as good as for the ladies, in fact. . . .

Look who the few people getting health insurance through Obamacare are!: Obamacare picking up the tab for prison inmates

This last week has shown real errors in Obamacare enrollment numbers. The Obama administration claims that 1.9 million people enrolled in October or November in states due to expanded Medicaid coverage, but actual Medicaid enrollment due directly to the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid was probably only about 190,000. The difference is that the Obama administration claimed people who were normally enrolling in Medicaid were counted in the Obama total. Even Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post has this headline: "Warning: Ignore claims that 3.9 million people signed up for Medicaid because of Obamacare."
From OregonLive:

By enrolling jail inmates in nationally subsidized healthcare -- best known as "Obamacare" to both the President and his critics -- the county could bill the federal government for the cost of providing some of them medical care.

There is a specific ACA provision related to the
exchanges that could significantly impact county jails, which states that “an individual
shall not be treated as a qualified individual, if at the time of enrollment; the
individual is incarcerated, other than incarceration pending disposition of charges.”This provision will likely allow eligible individuals
in custody pending disposition of charges to enroll in a health insurance plan offered
through an exchange prior to conviction, or maintain coverage if they are already
enrolled. . . .Additionally, as counties are responsible for
providing health care services for county jail inmates and the overwhelming majority
of individuals in jails lack any type of health insurance coverage, this provision
could potentially reduce county jail health costs. . . .

While federal law does not allow
for the reimbursement of inmate medical care
under Medicaid, there is an importantexception to this rule. Specifically, the exception states thatfederal financial participation (FFP) is permitted
“during thatpart of the month in which the
individual is not an inmate of a public institution.” 1The
Centers for Medicare and MedicaidServices has verified through guidance letters
issued in 1997 and 1998 that this exception
applies to incarcerated individuals once they are admitted as an inpatient in a
hospital, nursing facility, juvenile psychiatric
facility or intermediate care facility that
is not part of the state or local correctionalsystem. Therefore, if an inmate is eligible for Medicaid
and is transported out of a correctional
facility to receive inpatient hospital services,
Medicaid can be billed to cover the cost ofthese services. . . .

Thus counties are not just being advised on how to get the federal government to pick up the tab for their healthcare costs, but they are also being encouraged to handle any health care costs in what in many ways could be more costly than if the county jail took care of them itself.
Here is a note from the Association of County Commissions in Alabama.

Also, for these individuals to be eligible for enrollment for Medicaid benefits while they are incarcerated, they cannot be convicted of a crime or sentenced and awaiting transfer to state prison. They must be pre-trial inmates.

These questions arise because the ACA will expand eligibility Medicaid benefits to individuals that are up to 65 years of age and are living at 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Individuals in this group of people may find themselves entering into the criminal justice system through the local county jail. While this group of people may be eligible for or enrolled in Medicaid, Medicaid will not pay for any medical treatment while the individual is incarcerated. . . .

Total enrollments may be some place about 200,000 to 300,000 versus the 3.9 million. If the national number of people in jail over the course of a year is 13 million and a quarter of the year is 3.25 million (October, November, and December), you need just a trivial percentage of them (between 6.2 and 9.2 percent) to sign up to cover the entire 200,000 to 300,000.So how big are the enrollment changes from prison and jail in the past de-enrolling people from Medicaid.

The survey, published online today in the American Journal of Public Health, evaluated Medicaid policies from December 2011 to August 2012 at 42 state prison systems. According to the results, 66.7% of the prisons terminated enrollment and 21.4% suspended inmates from Medicaid when they were incarcerated. However, two-thirds of these prisons also helped prisoners reenroll when they were discharged. . . .

Rich and his colleagues questioned the policies to terminate coverage during incarceration as ACA provisions roll out. States with expanded Medicaid programs will cover all adults, regardless of whether they’re disabled or have dependents, up to 138% of the federal poverty level. Broader eligibility means more prisoners likely will be covered. But if their coverage is terminated, prisons can’t benefit from a 1997 federal law that allows Medicaid to cover inpatient care that inmates receive outside of the prison system, as long as they’re Medicaid eligible. . . .